“I could have been paralysed” – Top Irish cyclo-cross racer sustains broken bones due to trap on mountain bike trail

A top Irish cyclo-cross racer has sustained a number of broken bones after riding into a trap on a mountain bike trail in County Louth.

Seán Nolan, aged 20, is based in Belgium but had come back to Ireland to compete in the national cross country championships which took place yesterday in Bellurgan, near Dundalk.

But on Friday when he was on a training ride near Drogheda at Townley Hall Woods, he rode into a wire stretched across the trail and crashed, reports local radio station LMFM.

He broke four ribs and two of his vertebrae were fractured, and he also sustained a partially collapsed lung.

The wire was discovered by his father when he went to look at the location where the crash happened.

Speaking on the radio station’s Late Lunch show today, Nolan said: “I really could have been paralysed, easily. It could have changed my life forever.

“Thankfully it’s only going to be a couple of months of recovery,” added the cyclist, who in January finished 40th in the men’s under-23 race at the UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships in Fayeteville.

Earlier that month, he was runner-up in the elite race at the Irish national championships.

He also raced seven rounds of the UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup during the 2021/22 season, while on the road he races with Irish UCI Continental team Evo Pro Racing.

The crash  took place on a mountain bike trail on land owned by state-controlled forestry business Coillte, which is investigating the incident, which is similar to a number of ones we have reported on from the UK in which booby traps have been laid for cyclists using trails.

Coillte – the word is Irish for “forests” or “woods” – manages around 7 per cent of Ireland’s land area, and has developed six dedicated mountain bike centres in forests it maintains.

However, other than for walking, or cycling in designated areas where signs permit it, members of the public need to obtain a licence to undertake any activities on its land and a spokesperson for Coillte told LMFM that is does not “operate or authorise any mountain biking trails at Townley Hall,” and that it “has no licensed mountain bike activity in our forest at Townley Hall.”

Coillte added that it “is the largest provider of outdoor recreation in Ireland, with 260 recreational forests, twelve forest parks and six dedicated mountain bike centres. We work with local communities to develop recreational resources and facilities on our lands.

“In the interests of public safety and for the health and safety of all forest users, mountain bikers are asked to use the six dedicated mountain bike centres that Coillte have developed with purpose-built trails tailored to suit the experience of the individual mountain biker from novice to experienced, the details of which are available on www.coillte.ie.”